Inc. listed the 5 hardest jobs to fill in 2012. Having many friends who work in finance or on Wall Street, they face job insecurities and their jobs are largely tied to the economy, which still faces many challenges. However, meeting and talking with entrepreneus in the startup community, I’ve found a few common themes related to what the Inc article lists as hard to fill jobs.

Being in the tech and startup world in NYC is an exciting time. There’s a transformation happening that is paving the road to make NYC a major technology hub within the next few years. An Economist article writes about NYC’s city’s embrace of high-tech and “tech clusters have emerged in Manhattan’s Flatiron District and Brooklyn’s Dumbo”. Venture capital is (still) flowing to startup businesses and NYC has overtaken the Boston area in venture capital funding for internet and tech start-ups, making it second only to Silicon Valley. “And in the third quarter of last year, it surpassed it in venture capital in all categories,” writes the Economist. Between 2005 and 2010 employment in New York’s high-tech sector grew by nearly 30%. Google alone has about 1,200 engineers in the city.

Speaking of employment, a December 20, 2011 Wall Street Journal article says that if there is one common hurdle putting a damper on growth for many Dumbo startups, it is finding qualified programmers and engineers. As I’ve heard from others, the biggest challenge is recruiting. So NYC is doing its best to set up incubators in Dumbo and around the city. Mayor Bloomberg also called on universities to pitch plans to develop and operate a new tech campus on Roosevelt Island in exchange for access to city-owned land and up to $100m in public money. Both Cornell University, and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won the bidding for this.

In Brooklyn, politicians are pushing for an additional proposal for New York University and Polytechnic Institute to create an applied sciences campus at 370 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, creating a hub for science and tech closer to Dumbo and surrounding communities. These centers of learning will keep students and graduates in NYC to build world class technology companies. According to the city’s analysis, over the next 30 years the campus will generate more than $7.5 billion in economic activity, with 600 companies spinning out of the new schools directly.

So how does this all tie in with today’s hardest jobs to fill? The 5 jobs are related to the creative, technology, and marketing expertise that these tech companies are recruiting for. According to the Inc. article, the 5 hardest jobs to fill are:

Software Engineers and Web Developers

Creative Design and User Experience

Product Management

Marketing

Analytics

Of note is the last one, analytics, which is my area of interest. Says Inc., “Since data is becoming more and more accessible, smart companies are increasingly making decisions driven by metrics. Analytics is becoming a central hub across companies where everything (web, marketing, sales, operations) is being measured and each decision is supported by data. Thus, we are seeing a high level of demand for analytics and business intelligence professionals who almost act like internal consultants; they help determine what should be measured and then build out the capability for a company.”

While I’m not ready to launch at this stage, we are looking for people in all 5 areas. Contact me on @hideh if you’re interested.

We know that the use of analytics for business is the key to unlocking its data’s value. Getting actionable data translates to positive business outcomes can be used to reduce operational efficiency, meeting compliance requirements, or anticipating market needs. But the complexity of large business data can make it difficult to unlock the value.

Data can exist in various formats in various servers, files, hosting providers, and data warehouses. This also implies that an integrated data warehouse already exists. Even if there is an existing warehouse, shifts in business strategy or the use of technology can create disperate data locations that can’t be used in a data analytics platform. This is something I experienced as a corporate CIO. We knew there was a great amount of information we could use to better serve internal and external customers, but compiling the data into a usable report took too much time and was not on-demand. We did not lack good tools or the talent to generate insight. We had the support from BI vendors such as Oracle, Microsoft, SAS, and others. And our team was one of the best in the business. But the complexity and shifting requirements (either by the business or compliance reasons) added complex variables into the equation. Additionally, unstructured data didn’t necessarily ‘fit’ into our data warehouse for analysis.

In an Internet startup, analytics is essential as well, but is easier in the sense that there are no legacy systems, historical data, and outdated models that need to be pulled together. Jason Goldberg, CEO of Fab.com, posted his thoughts on how their data was used to raise $40million. Data analytics providers such as RJMetrics (customer acquisition metrics and customer lifetime value), SEOmoz (SEO data), Salesforce (CRM data), and Google Analytics (visit data, referrals, and traffic) can provide value for much less implentation costs.

Combining data from these services, they can provide a good view of where the business is now. While easier to build in analytics from the beginning, you still need to know what you’re looking for and how to set goals for your business. Without those, you as the visionary CEO won’t know where you’re paving the road towards so your team can get there.